The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus, such as a video camera, an audio device or a mobile phone, having a plurality of entry switches arranged at its operating section.
With advances in digital techniques, consumer-oriented electronic products including mobile phones, video cameras and audio devices have been highly integrated, and endowed with high performance in their downsized bodies. Besides, the-state-of-the-art has also accelerated an improvement in the user interface including a display and a keyboard. Here, taking a mobile phone as an example of such conventional consumer-oriented electronic products, its structure and operating characteristics are described below.
First of all, the structure of a mobile phone is described with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 11 is a front view of a conventional mobile phone. On the front side of outer housing 1, the sections, from top to bottom in the figure, arranged are:
(a) receiver 2 made of a loudspeaker;
(b) display 3 made of a LCD (liquid crystal display);
(c) touch panel switch 7;
(d) entry buttons made of numeric keys and confirmation keys;
(e) transmitter 5 made of a microphone.
FIG. 12 and FIG. 13 illustrate a cross-sectional view and an exploded perspective view of touch panel switch 7, respectively. As shown in the figures, conductive films 12 and 13, which are formed at face-to-face surfaces of touch panel switch 7, are sandwiched between two properly shaped insulating pads 10 and 11. Between conductive films 12 and 13, adhesive spacer 30 is inserted, maintaining an interval in order to provide electrical insulation. Insulating pad 10 is formed to be elastic. When a user""s finger depresses or slides on the pad, the applied force recesses a position and leads to electrical conduction between conductive films 12 and 13. Each time condition is established, an output signal is obtained from electrode portion 14 via lead portions 15A to 15D and 16. The structure adopted for touch panel switch 7 is generally called an analog type or a resistive film type.
As shown in FIG. 11, outer housing 1 accommodates extendible antenna 17 at its top. Display 3, touch panel switch 7, entry buttons 6, and electric circuitry (not shown) which controls antenna 17, are housed in outer housing 1. The structure including the electric circuitry is shown in the block diagram in FIG. 14.
In FIG. 14, Central Processing Unit (CPU) 18 performs various calculations and evaluations. More specifically, CPU 18 controls display 3 through Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) driver 19 and processes directly received signals from entry buttons 6; CPU 18 processes output signals from touch panel switch 7 via touch panel switch driver 20; CPU 18 controls antenna 17 via transmission-reception circuit 21; and CPU 18 also controls ROM 22 having pre-stored information, and RAM 23 in which the information items of a telephone directory can be added or deleted as required.
The placing-a-call procedure is now described. Suppose that the phone number of a party to be called is selected by a search function from the phone numbers pre-stored in a memory in the mobile phone. When the mobile phone is not in communication, as shown in FIG. 15, display 3 displays initial menu 24 comprising a plurality of items, and cursor 25 identifies distinctively which item is concurrently selected in the menu.
In order to place a call with the search function, a user usually selects the xe2x80x9cCalling telephone numberxe2x80x9d item in the initial menu. With the finger-sliding motion on the surface of touch panel switch 7, the user can put cursor 25 in display 3 on the xe2x80x9cCalling telephone numberxe2x80x9d item. When the user slides the finger on the surface of elastic insulating pad 10, a contact point between conductive films 12 and 13 changes its position, following the wake of the finger-sliding motion. Referring to now FIG. 13, lead portion 15 (15A through 15D) is extended from electrode portion 14 (14A through 14D). Lead portion 16 is electrically connected to conductive film 12 with contact portion 16A, which is laid beneath insulating pad 10. In response to the position changed by the finger motion on the surface, touch panel switch 7 produces an output signal (i.e., an output voltage value) with its magnitude varying between lead portions 15 and 16. Obtained from two orthogonal directions, the output signal is converted from analog to digital by touch panel switch driver 20. Then the converted signal is entered into CPU 18. Processing the received signal in time sequence, CPU 18 determines in which direction the finger slid on the touch pad surface of touch panel switch 7, and moves cursor 25 in a proper direction based on the determination.
With the cursor sitting on the desired item, the user depresses confirmation key 6A. Through this action, a decision signal is sent to CPU 18. The decision signal informs CPU 18 of completion of selecting and confirming the desired item. Receiving the decision signal, CPU 18 recognizes that the xe2x80x9cCalling telephone numberxe2x80x9d item is selected, and fetches the pre-stored telephone directory information from RAM 23 or ROM 22. CPU 18 then sends the information to LCD 4 via LCD driver 19, so that the telephone directory appears on the display 3.
With another finger-sliding motion on the touch pad surface of touch panel switch 7, the user now moves cursor 25 to identify a telephone number to be selected, then depresses confirmation key 6A. In response to this action, CPU 18 recognizes that the selection is validated and performs the predetermined procedure: CPU 18 not only transmits a transmission signal through transmission-reception circuit 21 and antenna 17 to the selected phone number of the party to be called, but also activates receiver 2 and transmitter 5.
As described above, the finger-sliding motion on the touch panel surface of touch panel switch 7 is a quick-and-easy manner of selection in conventional mobile phones. The users can thereby pick out the desired item easily among many items on the display.
The ease of use mentioned above; however, is impaired on a smaller touch panel: the area requires enough space for the finger-sliding motion. Due to recent technological advances, electronic apparatus are getting smaller and smaller. On the other hand, the display area of such apparatus requires more space to cope with a higher volume of information to display thereon. In turn, it has become difficult to reserve enough space for a touch pad in a limited space.
The present invention addresses the problems discussed above and aims to provide an electronic apparatus without any space occupied exclusively by the touch panel switch on its entry section. It is a further object to provide an electronic appartus that offers an improved finger-sliding operation with positive response to the touch panel switch.
In the structure of the entry section of an electronic apparatus according to the present invention, a touch panel switch with elasticity is placed over a depression switch with tactile feedback (similar to a clicking response.) The depression switch comprises a plurality of switch elements disposed in a planar arrangement. When a user slides the finger on the surface of the touch panel switch structured above, an output signal from the touch panel switch changes in response to the finger-sliding operation. From the output changes, the apparatus detects in which direction the finger moves and how far the finger moves on the touch panel. The detected moving direction and amount are associated with the items appearing on the display, so that the user can select a desired item and then enter it.
This two-layered structure thus offers a user-friendly electronic apparatus having two ways of operation: finger-sliding with a light touch enables the user to select a desired item; and finger-depressing with a force sufficient to activate the lower-layered depression switch enables the user to enter preset information including characters, numerals, and symbols.
According to the present invention, the apparatus comprises a display section displaying a plurality of items and identifying an item to be selected from among the items, and a depression switch with tactile feedback. The depression switch is made up a plurality of switch elements, and different information for data entry is assigned to each of them.
An elastic touch panel switch is laid over the depression switch with tactile feedback. Due to the elasticity, the force applied on the surface of the touch panel switch can also operate the lower-layered depression switch. When a user now slides the finger on the upper-layered touch panel switch, an output signal from the touch panel switch changes in response to the finger-sliding operation. From the output changes, the apparatus detects which direction the finger moves and how far the finger moves on the touch panel. The detected moving direction and amount are associated with the items appearing on the display, so that the user can select a desired item and then enter it. This two-layered structure not only eliminates the space allocated for a touch panel switch from the entry section, but also maintains enough area for easily performing the finger-sliding operation, it is thus possible to provide an electronic apparatus with ease of operation.
In a preferred embodiment, a plurality of entry buttons may be arranged between the outer housing and the top surface of the touch panel switch. As the user""s finger slides along the face of the arranged buttons, the bottom of the button depresses a specified position of the touch panel switch. That is, a staircase-shaped signal is obtained from the touch panel switch, which is reliable, easy to detect and control.
As another preferred embodiment, a transparent material may be employed for the touch panel switch and the entry buttons disposed thereon, and an illuminator may be disposed beneath the touch panel switch. The illuminator makes the surface of the touch panel switch glow for increased visibility, when the user operates the apparatus in the dark.
In still another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus comprises a display section displaying a plurality of items and identifying an item to be selected from among the items, and an elastic membrane switch with tactile feedback. The membrane switch is made up of a plurality of switch elements, and different information for data entry is assigned to each of them.
The membrane switch is laid over the touch panel switch. As a user slides the finger horizontally along the surface of the membrane switch, an output from the touch panel switch changes in response to the finger-sliding operation. From the output changes, the apparatus detects in which direction the finger moves and how far the finger moves on the membrane switch. The detected moving direction and amount are associated with the items appearing on the display, so that the user can select a desired item and then enter it. This two-layered structure thus not only eliminates the space allocated for a touch panel switch from the entity section, but also maintains enough area for easily performing the finger-sliding operation. It is thus possible to provide an electronic apparatus with ease of operation. In addition, a plurality of entry buttons may be disposed between the membrane switch and the outer housing laid thereon. This structure secures a positive depression on the membrane switch, providing users with a tactile response.